Monica started out in this series as an angelic "case worker" after being in "search and rescue." She was a cute, dainty angel with an inexplicable Irish accent.
The final two-episode hoorah for "Touched by an Angel" has two plot strands running concurrently. One has all her angelic pals being interviewed by Somebody as to whether she should be promoted.
The other strand reunites some of Monica's earthly friends she's helped in the past, as the very real chief of fallen angels tries to convict a strangely reticent young man of blowing up a school and murdering all the kids in town.
Both plot strands have a number of the guest stars for which the series was famous. Or infamous.
The climax is genuinely surprising and moving so I won't give it away.
Now, a few corrections of the nonsense talked about of this series. Some have suggested the dove is the Christian symbol of peace. Malarkey. The dove is the symbol of the Holy Spirit, the third person of the Christian Trinity, though the Holy Spirit brings individuals peace. The dove is the earthly symbol of peace, which is never possible ("We wrestle not against flesh and blood . . ." As this episode illustrates. And it's very welcome on prime time network television to have an episode of a show that's run nine years to actually have a suggestion of all Persons of the Trinity (naturally they still had to wait until the final episode to do it, and I'm astounded it got aired).
"Touched" almost got canceled in its first season but it came back fighting and this beautiful show had a respectable run of nine years, though by the ninth season it was nearly out of steam. Monica was looking bad, like she'd had an unsuccessful face-lift or something. Since she couldn't be the innocent any longer and be anything but dumb, they brought in Valerie Bertinelli as a new angel on a steep learning curve, which I didn't think worked. Not as many weepy episodes by the ninth series (or did we get jaded over nine years?)
Nevertheless, the series' quality remained high and the ninth series produced some respectable episodes, like the one about the watchmaker at Christmas.
This final episode (which needs to be seen with the penultimate episode) is a summation of all that came before and showed pretty graphically what it's all about. It's a lovely way to finish off a series. Good-bye Monica.
